Author
An author or writer is someone who originates or gives existence to something or writes something. Some people draw a distinction between published authors and amateur writers, but more often the two are used interchangeably. Some authors are universally recognized as being good. An example would be J.R.R. Tolkien. Other authors are usually called bad, like Christopher Paolini or Fenimore Cooper. It's up to the author what they write, but writers of fanfiction should be advised to obey the canon. Not doing so will very likely result in the fic being PPCed, MSTed, or sporked in general. Many authors of fanfiction are also Suethors. An author is effectively omnipotent within the world he has created. PPC agents are advised to remember this when taking care of the creations of Suethors: nothing stops an author from simply writing, "And Mary Sue painfully and messily killed the PPC agents, and went back to making out with Legolas." However, this has never happened, and since PPC agents are written by their own authors, chances are the agent's author could simply respond with "But it was all a dream, and the agents charged the Sue and threw her corpse into Mount Doom." The back-and-forth godmoding could potentially go on forever, tying up PPC resources in an unwinnable battle. This is one of the reasons why Suethors are generally not notified of their Sue's assassination. Occasionally, an author may bring the PPC's attention to their own badfic. This is an Author-Requested Mission. PPC Regulations Regarding Authors However annoyed PPC agents may be at the authors of the fics they patrol, they are not allowed—no, not even then—to injure or kill authors. There are two main reasons for this: * Authors are sapient creatures. Sues are not. Murder is the killing of a sapient creature, and agents are not authorized to murder anyone. * Killing authors is unnecessary. Institutions like OFUM and its sister schools have proven that badfic authors can be turned into goodfic authors, negating a badfic author's deleterious effect on canon and eventually strengthening the canon when graduates write goodfic. This was also the purpose of the former Department of Author Correspondence. For similar reasons, PPC writers are strongly discouraged from flaming, badmouthing, casting aspersions on, or otherwise insulting badfic writers. The PPC's problem with bad writers is their badness, not the character of the writer him/herself: more often than not in a mission, the Mary Sue or the Sue-wraith can be deemed the manifestation of this badness, containing all of the shortsighted stupidity that the author may temporarily be under the influence of. This is why Mary Sues are charged with the crimes of badfic, rather than the authors being charged. When PPC materials refer to an author's motives or an author's mistakes, it is not done as any kind of insult or condemnation but merely as a statement of facts about a story or a trend in badfic, nothing more. Sources * Agent Tess, DoSAT, encounters a Suethor who tries to take her out. Thankfully, her own author is on her side: ** Another Tess Story * Agent Melanin Butterfly's musings about the power of an author: **On reading Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.... Category:Terminology Category:Writing Basics